The Bellwether Revivals (3 page)

Eden glanced up at the sky. ‘Oh. Well. Thank you. I try my best.’

‘You couldn’t save his soul, though,’ Iris said. ‘He’s a non-believer.’ She perched side-saddle on the crossbar of the bike, placing an arm around her brother and kissing him softly on the cheek. ‘Shall we go?’

Eden received the kiss, barely reacting. ‘Yes, let’s,’ he said, ‘before the porters catch me on this thing. I’ve already been warned about riding through.’

‘I don’t know why you insist on cycling. Just take a cab.’

‘It’s become something of a battle of wills. First man to blink loses. Can’t let that happen.’ Eden lowered his voice to say something into her ear and she laughed, hitting his arm playfully. ‘Shut up,’ she said. ‘Don’t say that.’ Then, with a stiff movement of his legs, Eden started to pedal away. ‘Good to meet you, Oscar,’ Iris said.

‘Yeah. Same.’

‘See you Sunday.’

‘Yeah. Sunday.’

They were quite a sight, the two of them: Eden pumping hard at the pedals just to keep the bike upright, and Iris with her long legs stretched out a few inches above the ground. As they approached the Gatehouse, where the lawn turned at a right angle, she called out into the hazy lamplight, but Oscar couldn’t quite tell what she was saying.

Dr Paulsen was sleeping in the leather armchair by the window. His head was limp against his shoulder, heavy as a lettuce, and the sun was edging across his face. ‘How are we this morning?’ Oscar said. He gathered a pillow from the bed and waited for the
old man to stir. It was after nine a.m. and he knew that Dr Paulsen would want to be woken; unlike the other residents, he was not a man who was happy to sleep the day away. He didn’t like to waste time on television the way the others did, or spend a whole week assembling a jigsaw that only revealed a picture of a sunny foreign vista he was too old to visit. (‘I’ve never understood the concept of the jigsaw,’ he once said. ‘I mean, the picture’s already on the box—where’s the mystery?’) His room was very different from the others: bright with natural light, dense with furniture and books, and the scent of urine was fainter here than anywhere else in the building. Oscar put this down to the extra care the nurses took in emptying Paulsen’s bottle—the old man was so cold to most of them that they were terrified of spilling a drop.

Dr Paulsen lifted his head, a web of drool caught against his chin. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said, looking at Oscar, dew-eyed. ‘Is it that time already? I was having a wonderful dream about … well, about something. I think Rupert Brooke was in it. Somebody was swimming naked in the Cam, anyway. If I were thirty years younger, I would’ve found it all quite arousing.’

Oscar placed the pillow behind the old man’s neck. ‘Are you coming down for breakfast today? Or are we still keeping ourselves to ourselves?’

‘I haven’t decided.’ Paulsen sat upright in the chair. ‘The more I look at these same four walls, the more I feel like Edmond Dantès. A heroic bearer of injustice.’ He narrowed his eyes at Oscar. ‘You’re very chirpy this morning. What’s got into you?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Rubbish. Did you get a pay rise?’

‘No.’

‘Good. The rates here are already extortionate.’

Oscar smiled. With a groan, he lifted Paulsen up by the elbows, and when the old man was steady on his feet, he said: ‘Actually, I sort of met somebody last night. A girl.’

‘Hand me my dressing gown, would you?’ Paulsen said. ‘I have to process this information.’ Oscar retrieved the old man’s silk robe from the hook and held out the sleeves for him. Slowly, Paulsen reached his arms through and, with knotted, arthritic fingers, made very hard work of tying the cord. ‘Okay, let’s pretend this imaginary girl you’re talking about is real. Tell me about her. I’ll humour you for a moment.’

‘Oh, she’s definitely real.’

‘Convince me,’ Paulsen said.

Oscar tried to describe Iris in every last detail—the glossy whites of her eyes, her cigarette smell, the gentle drape of her hair against her neck. When he told him about the book she’d been reading and where she was studying, the old man interrupted: ‘Warning lights are flashing now. But go on. Tell me you got her phone number.’

‘I didn’t quite get that far.’

‘You’re hopeless,’ Paulsen said. ‘It’s a good job she’s imaginary.’

Dr Paulsen was the only resident at Cedarbrook whom Oscar could talk to. He was born in Oxford but had been an English professor at Cambridge and a Fellow at King’s College for over thirty years. He kept a library in his room, hardbacks stacked alphabetically by author on dark wood shelves. There were more books in his room than anything else, in fact; more novels and poetry collections and anthologies than stripes on the wallpaper. He wouldn’t let the other nurses touch them, but he allowed Oscar to read them in his company, and, for a year now, he’d been letting him take home a book at a time.

They had an understanding between them. Oscar was the only nurse who recognised Paulsen’s need for privacy. The others tried to force him to be sociable; they’d set a place for him at the dinner table and wonder why he wouldn’t come downstairs, meal after meal after meal. The old man could be gloomy, abrasive, downright rude. But in the few years Oscar had been
working at Cedarbrook, he’d found a way to overlook Paulsen’s fits of temper, because he knew he was capable of genuine kindness. And he was learning so much from the old man, simply by reading the books he recommended. In the last six months, he’d read novels by Graham Greene, Herman Hesse, the collected stories of Gianni Celati, Katherine Mansfield, Frank O’Connor, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and essays by George Orwell. He had almost forgotten how much he loved to read; the private cadence of the words as his eyes passed over them. His parents were the kind of people who owned bookshelves but no books. They didn’t understand the pleasure of reading and never thought it was something they needed to encourage. In their lives, books were optional, things foisted on children at school by dishevelled English teachers. Oscar was raised to believe that if he stayed in his room reading about made-up worlds it meant he didn’t appreciate the life he had, the possessions his parents had worked hard for, like the TV and the video and the newly turfed back garden. If he read books, his father would ask him if he was okay, if he was feeling unwell, and whatever happened to that friend of his who came over once for tea. Back on his parents’ estate in Watford, life was easier if he didn’t read. So he trained himself not to want to.

But ever since Dr Paulsen invited him to borrow from his library last year—’Choose something. Anything. I don’t do recommendations’—Oscar had begun to recall the joy of reading. Sometimes he could get through three or four books a month if things were slow at Cedarbrook, more if he worked nights. There were evenings when all the residents had been put to bed and the nurse-call buttons were no longer chiming, and he could spend long hours in the empty parlour, reading in the lamplight, his fingers dry against the pages, smelling of antibacterial soap. These were the times when he was happiest.

‘Alright, let’s go and see what they’re passing off as breakfast,’ Paulsen said. ‘Might as well start making an effort.’ He held out
his arm, like a gentleman asking a lady to dance. Oscar retrieved the old man’s walking stick from the foot of the bed and placed it into his hand. ‘Should I expect a red carpet or what?’

‘They’ll be sounding the trumpets for you.’

‘Good, good.’

Oscar led him down the dim corridor. After a few steps, the old man spoke into his ear: ‘Listen, you want to be careful.’

‘About what?’

‘About fraternising with Cambridge girls. Their daddies don’t like them being with boys like you for too long. They consider it a waste of school fees.’

‘Well, I’ll keep my wits about me.’

‘Make sure you do. Besides—’ Another resident, Mrs Brady, stepped out into the hallway and Dr Paulsen went quiet. He stopped walking. She peered at them both and creased up her face, confused. There was a silent standoff between them, like two old cowboys meeting in the thoroughfare of a pioneer town. Then Mrs Brady turned, disappearing back into her room, and Dr Paulsen started walking again. ‘What was I saying?’

‘Besides.’

‘Right. Yes. Besides, Cambridge students are very strange people, in my experience. They know so much about science and literature it makes them have peculiar habits when it comes to other things. Like dancing, and decorating their homes. You’re best away from people like that. Stick with the salt-of-the-earth types like me.’

‘I would,’ Oscar said, ‘except you’re the strangest person I know.’

They reached the top of the stairs. He took the old man’s cane and heaved him safely into the stair lift. Paulsen said: ‘I should have a copy of the Descartes somewhere. It’s yours if you can find it.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Just don’t go scribbling love hearts in the margins.’

Oscar smiled. He placed the cane across the armrests, as if it were a drop-bar on a roller coaster, and when he was sure that Paulsen was secure, he pressed the green button and watched him descend, gradually, noisily, to the floor below.

Oscar sat near the back of the concert hall. He could hear every small sound in the tight acoustics of the room—the drumming of people’s fingers on the armrests, coats being folded up, the stowing of wet umbrellas. Onstage, a grand piano was set up with its lid propped open, and rows of vacant chairs and music stands stood around it in a perfect arc. A single cello was laid out sideways on the maple floor.

He browsed the concert programme and found Iris’s name amongst the list of players. It looked strange in print, asymmetrical, a short word followed by a longer one, like a lorry hauling its load across the motorway: Iris Bellwether. He liked the breathy sound of it, the way it left his tongue. Further down the schedule, it was printed again: ‘Iris Bellwether – Cello –
Elégie
(G. Fauré)’.

People were slowly gathering in the hall, but there were plenty of empty seats around him. Reserved conversations pervaded the room, and spikes of laughter kept rising in the foyer. Suddenly, he felt an invasion of his space, a looming presence over his shoulder. The floor creaked behind him. Oscar turned to find a tall man removing his sodden overcoat, spreading it out to dry over the
arms of two seats. He could only see the man’s back, but he knew right away that it was Eden. There was something familiar about the rangy, languid movements of his body, and the wreath of curls that gave his head an accidental roundness.

When Oscar called out, Eden turned and dipped his head like a customer addressing a shoeshine. ‘Oh, hello there,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I’ve forgotten your name.’

‘Oscar.’

‘That’s right. I knew it began with an O, but I was thinking: Oliver? Owen? I knew it wasn’t Orville, at least—I deserve some credit for that. Anyway, it’s very good of you to come.’ He was dressed oddly, in the kind of outfit that seemed to have been assembled at short notice: a bright yellow turtleneck that was far too tight on the shoulders; pebbly black trousers, soaked at the ankles. He had a silver ear-stud that glimmered in the soft light. Sitting down, straight-backed, assured, he pinched at the crease in his slacks and surveyed the concert hall. ‘Not a bad turn-out for a rainy Sunday. She’ll be pleased. Have you seen her?’

‘No, but I’ve been keeping an eye out.’

‘I’m sure you have,’ Eden grinned.

There was a small silence between them. A group of rain-spotted women headed up the aisle and took their seats. Eden flitted his eyes towards the ceiling and sniffed, as if noticing a bad smell. ‘Actually, I’m glad I’ve bumped into you. Will you be coming to the party later? Just a little after-show thing, at our place. All very low key.’ There was barely a chance to give an answer. ‘Iris was going to ask you but—well, I saw you first. Will you come?’

‘Alright.’

‘We’ll share a cab. It’s still torrential out there.’ Eden leaned back and stretched, revealing two large sweat patches below his armpits. He looked at his watch. ‘They’re starting a bit late, aren’t they? Preening themselves, no doubt. Somebody needs to tell them hairspray won’t make them sound any better.’

Somehow, Oscar couldn’t imagine Iris fussing over her hair
backstage. She seemed to be the kind of girl who paid little attention to her appearance. Maybe she spent a few minutes perfecting her make-up in the mornings, just to present the illusion of effort, but she wasn’t the sort to keep an audience waiting for her nail varnish to dry.

‘You left quite an impression on her, you know,’ Eden said. ‘She likes you.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. Really.’

‘How can you tell?’

‘She’s not difficult to read. For the past few days it’s been Oscar this, Oscar that. That’s the thing about Iris—she doesn’t just get a bee in her bonnet, she gets an entire swarm. You could probably find honey in there if you cracked her open. I don’t see what all the fuss is about, personally.’

Oscar smiled. ‘What’s she been saying about me?’

‘Oh, come on now,’ Eden said. ‘Let’s not be schoolgirls.’

It was the first time that Oscar had been able to get a good look at him. He wasn’t at all like his sister. He had the narrow features of a field spaniel: a long, freckled nose; thin, almost invisible lips. And his eyes—there was something particularly striking about them. They had a noticeable glaze, like buffed apple-skin.

Without warning, the house lights dimmed and Oscar’s heart began to rabbit in his chest. One by one, the chamber group took to the stage, Iris at the back, head lowered coyly into the hot light bearing down from the gantry. They positioned themselves accordingly—string section, woodwind section—settling into their chairs, giving momentary plucks and blows to check their tuning.

Oscar felt the pressure of a hand on his shoulder. ‘Is it true you work at Cedarbrook?’ Eden said, leaning in close. His tone was friendly but probing; his breath smelled vaguely of alcohol.

Oscar nodded.

‘You’ve no idea how wonderful that is,’ Eden said. ‘It’s such a
treat to be able to speak to a regular person.’ The hall doors closed behind them. A murmur of expectation bulged in the auditorium. ‘Let’s sit down at the party later. Just you and me. I bet you could tell me all kinds of things.’